The Youth Of Today...

[ChillDoubt]

Do they match up?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23563616

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Cornwell#Victoria_Cross

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Fitzgibbon

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Monger

Nothing would give me greater pride than to be proved wrong, though I won't hold my breath....

[hc4361]

We are much better informed about warfare today than in 1914. There had never been a conflict anything like the Great War to give those men an inkling of what was to come.

Today we have 24/7 news on tv, we can see much of what is going on and all our armed forces personnel are volunteers.

[ludwig]

// Nothing would give me greater pride than to be proved wrong //

I can't prove it, but common sense tells me you're wrong.

[emmie]

but that doesn't stop the soldiers coming home once discharged from the forces either from physical or mental illness having any more help,

there was lots of coverage of WW1, plenty of footage you can watch now and then, shown at the cinemas, newsreels of the soldiers campaigns and how the war was progressing. In some instances the order to go over the top was filmed first before an actual battle, to show what it was like, then they had to do the real thing later on.

[anotheoldgit]

Sharingan

/// It was not all milk and honey one hundred years ago, there were nasty, depraved hateful little thugs about then too ///

Yes I agree, what about the 'Artful Dodger' and his mob?

[emmie]

that was Dickens time, we have always had thugs, rogues, thieves, have a look at what seven dials was like near covent garden, a hell hole by all accounts.

[hc4361]

Those that volunteered at the start of the war went in to it totally blind.

Today's suicide rate in forces personnel and veterans is scandalous - but it is no higher than the rate in the general population.

[emmie]

agree that they were cannon fodder, they weren't all young....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Tv5gBa9DQs

[emmie]

hc, it;s scandalous because this is 2013, that there should be massive help for service personnel, you understand it for the other wars, mental illness was little understood, and to some extent it still isn't, but from reading that as often or not the present day soldiers who leave the forces, their medical discharge notes are not forwarded to a GP, that should in my opinion happen. If they have significant mental health problem that would be the least the MOD could do, they don't it would seem. The man or woman would have a GP i would expect from the time before they entered the services, if not their families must have one, more should be do for those who suffer the after affects of war and what they have witnessed.

[FredPuli43]

I hope we never have the circumstances when we find out the answer to the OP.

What did the Duke of Wellington say about his own soldiers? He didn't know what they did to the enemy, but , by God, they frightened him? Yet in battle they were brave enough.

There is no reason to assume now that our young men do not contain the same percentage of potential heroes than previous generations did. Circumstances create heroes. As I have said in the past, the only two men I have met who won the VC both said that they would never have done the heroic deed if they had been thinking straight! But, in the agony of the moment , they did it because they had to, as they saw it. It was not a time for careful reflection on the possible consequences. Both were 'unlikely heroes', modest men who far from the Hollywood stereotype, and both returned to pretty unexciting civilian life quite happily.

Who is to say that today's young men have not got such among them?

[emmie]

Wellington called his men the scum of the earth.

[emmie]

we live in a very different country, world, than between the two major conflicts, very different indeed. I have said this before, if it came to WW3 would some of those who's families come from far afield want to fight for Britain, and there is absolutely no way of knowing if they would, but some young men brought up in Britain have gone to fight in foreign wars, notably Syria.. Iraq.

[anotheoldgit]

I think that the real question here is, if in the likelihood of another war, in which the youth of today were called upon to defend their village, their town, their city, their country against a force that wanted to do them harm, would they rally round and stand shoulder to shoulder with their fellow man (or woman)?

Please don't just say it could never happen, who knows what could happen in the future?

Even if the government were to bring back National Service, what would be the response then, would today's youngsters accept that brown envelope through their letter box, ordering them to attend a medical, so as to prove their fitness for the armed services?

[emmie]

no way of knowing till it happens

[emmie]

and before anyone jumps in, I am fully aware of Commonwealth soldiers who fought and died for Britain, in their millions... a terrible waste, all of it.

[FredPuli43]

Wellington called the Army the scum of the Earth in 1831, long after the Napoleonic Wars. But it may well have been true in 1810; hence the "by God they frighten me" remark made then. It seems highly likely that his foot soldiers were the kind of men who you wouldn't want to meet on a night out drinking !

[emmie]

this is often why you see large memorials in villages, towns, they went together and often died together, brothers in arms and brothers in death.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pals_battalion

[emmie]

i think it was a compliment, he knew they were rag tag, scum, but they fought like devils.

[ChillDoubt]

I can't prove it, but common sense tells me you're wrong.
------------------------
Exactly ludwig, open to conjecture. The other thing is 'common sense'. Invariably, it's anything but common.

[jim360]

Given the choice between fighting for my country and fellow countrymen on the front lines, and not doing so and watching us lose to some oppressor, I'd fight. Although there are two points worth making: firstly, I don't think I'd make all that much difference in a fight, and secondly, I think I'd be more useful somewhere else in the war effort -- code-breaking, say, or logistics.

Warfare in the early 20th century was a lot more about fighting and only fighting than today. There are other roles available these days -- even in WWII, I'd probably be working at one of the radar stations or some such, rather than on the beaches of Normandy.

These changes alone make the OP an unfair comparison.

[emmie]

you wouldn't necessarily be given a choice, it would be dependant on age of course, but if they need you to be a fighting serviceman, then that is what they would do. It might be you could choose what service, but depends on what time of war we could end up with...